With permission from the author, I've reposted a message to the NGW List about GroupWise vs Mirapoint.

My main reason for doing this is that the misinformation that Mirapoint put in their press release (link below) contains common misconceptions about GroupWise.

GroupWise administrator Joe Pampel wrote back to the PR agency and the company to rebut their press release.

His article contains many interesting facts about GroupWise which more people ought to know.

Without further delay, here is Joe's letter:

Willem

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http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060724005036&newsLang=en

'stranded'? ' obsolete' !? Gimme a break.. who are these yahoos?

I put typing skills to good use and wrote them a note.. - Joe P
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To whom it may concern:

Your recent press release titled, "Mirapoint Launches Worldwide Trade-in Program to Stranded Novell GroupWise Customers" is full of inaccurate statements and at best is a misleading piece issued apparently under the strategy that any press is good press. As the CTO of a financial firm which happens to use both Netware and GroupWise, I must take issue with a number of statements.

Far from obsolete, GroupWise runs on Netware, Windows and now Linux: both on the server end as well as on the client side. Mirapoint runs on proprietary hardware only, and appears to only support a web client or Outlook.
Netware as a platform is less 'obsolete' than Windows 2000 if support is any measure. Netware is being supported out to 2015; Windows 2000 has support until 2010. I'm waiting for your press release to push for folks to get off of their "obsolete" Windows platforms. How about it?

As a GroupWise admin, I am anything but "stranded": GroupWise has a vibrant partner ecosystem handling various 3rd party tasks such as archiving & retention, backup, anti-virus, anti-spam, customization, etc. Having bundled A/V and A/S is at best limiting, and at worst is dangerous, as your engineering and/or partnerships become a SPoF [ed. note: Single Point of Failure]. Are we to believe that Mirapoint is 'best in breed' across multiple disciplines? For example, choosing a third party partner for IM compliance was a good idea, but upon close inspection, both Akonix and IM Logic are arguably better platforms for this functionality than Facetime. But you partnered with Facetime. This simply supports my statement on having one source being 'limiting'. GroupWise ships with enterprise IM which has logging built in, is clusterable, and whose 'presence' appears in the GroupWise client. Mirapoint has no such functionality as far as I can tell.

GroupWise has a clear roadmap for future versions, new functionality and in fact is already doing things natively that other vendors like Mirapoint & Microsoft Exchange cannot match. For example, the GroupWise Mobile server by Intellisync which supports over 400 different mobile devices (included free with GW7 SP1). Not just for wireless push email, but contacts, calendar, etc. GroupWise supports a web client, a cross platform client (Linux, Mac) a Win32 GroupWise client as well as Outlook 2003. This flexibility is unmatched by any other collaboration product as far as I am aware.

GroupWise has document management built in. GroupWise runs easily in HA cluster mode using a distributed architecture. This costs nothing extra; just buy the hardware. Storage can be attached or iSCSI or SAN. From any vendor. GroupWise easily handles post office sizes and mail volumes that bring Exchange down to a crawl. GroupWise has the best full text indexing engine in the market. How does Mirapoint stack up there? Can I search my multi-gigabyte mailbox in seconds?

Last but not least, GroupWise has a security record that is unmatched in the industry, the only system that even compares is Lotus Notes. That record has been tested over a decade in which virus after virus leveled Exchange systems. Mirapoint is how old? When you can look back at a decade of stability and security, crowing about your accomplishments will mean more.

In summary, when you have a product which is as promising as Mirapoint, it is a mistake to make unsubstantiated claims in order to 'make noise'. It only serves to undermine your credibility as a firm. If you can't make your case in daylight with facts whose veracity cannot be impugned, you need to go back and examine your business model. Calling your competitors 'names' is at best disappointing, and at worst gives the appearance that your product cannot stand on its own merits. It smacks of desperation and illustrates how little you actually know about your competition.

You can do better.

Respectfully,

Joe Pampel
Redding, CT